The Awesome .460 Smith & Wesson

Precision machined from stainless-steel hammer forgings, the 460’s frame is pretty much standard the X-frame design with a brushed satin finish. The unfluted cylinder holds five rounds. The 5-inch long barrel shroud wears integrally machined Picatinny rails top and bottom. The 9-slot top rail is for mounting long–eye-relief optics, while the 3-slot bottom rail is for attaching the included bi-pod. The barrel is fluted forward of the shroud to reduce weight and increase stiffness. A massive, 1-3/32” diameter, 3-port brake is threaded onto the muzzle, and does an excellent job of attenuating both muzzle rise and perceived recoil.

Threaded onto the muzzle of the 14-inch-fluted barrel is a massive and extre mely effective three-port muzzle brake. Similar to the gas block of an AR-15, The unique black-ramped front iron-sight clamps around the entire circumference of the barrel.The 460s massive stai nless-steel cylinder holds five-rounds.

The matte-black blade front sight is machined as a band that wraps around the barrel and is secured by a machine screw at the bottom. The rear sight is an X-Frame sized version of Smith & Wesson’s standard windage and elevation adjustable rear sight. The sight radius is a whopping 15.5 inches! Other features include S&W logoed Hogue rubber grips, wide-spur serrated hammer, serrated cylinder latch and the Smith & Wesson key locking system.

While the Performance Center’s most visible magic involves the barrel, barrel shroud, front sight and muzzle brake, they’ve been busy inside the .460XVR as well. The hammer and .312” wide trigger blade are hard-chrome plated, a trigger stop is added and the action is hand fitted and tuned. In single-action mode, the hammer fell after an average trigger pull weight of only 3 lbs. 10 oz., with zero creep, stacking or over travel. In double-action mode, the trigger stroke was smooth, but long (7/8”) and heavy.

Trigger pull weight actually exceeded the 12-pound limit of our Lyman digital trigger pull gauge. Our guess is that the actual pull weight was in the area of 14 pounds .

For testing we had only one .460 S&W Magnum load available, but it was the one we’d choose for long-range hunting—Hornady’s 200-gr. FTX. The FTX bullet exits the muzzle of Hornady’s 8.375” test barrel at a velocity of 2,200 f.p.s., developing 2,149 ft. lbs. of kinetic energy. The 460XVR’s 14-inch barrel increased the muzzle velocity by an average of 170 f.p.s.—about 30 f.p.s. per additional inch of barrel length—bringing average muzzle velocity up to 2,370 f.p.s. and increasing kinetic energy to 2,495 ft. lbs. Sighted in at 100 yards, the trajectory is so flat that the bullet strikes only 2.5” low at 150 yards and 7.7” low at 200 yards.